SGOTM 14 - Spooks

[markh]

knight kills an impi in Isandl
knight loses to impi there

IBT : The hittites land two warriors at CC

3 Zulu swords suicide on knights, a 4th one retreats one knight

deal with Rome is cancelled

1) 350BC : kill both Hitt warriors with knights

lose a knight on a Zulu sword in the open

IBT : Japan lands a spear and sword at CC

Shala suicides another two swords on knights

2) 330BC : two knights smack the Japanese intruders

the knights at Isandl.. are all injured, so have to wait for reinforcements

IBT : Forbidden Palace done

The Ottomans land a pike at CC

3) 310BC : lose two knights on this silly Ottoman pike

two knights finally take Isandhlwana

take down two impis running around

IBT : uh, Shaka threatens Zimbabwe with an archer

4) 290BC : a knight kills that archer

2 knights and 1st army kills three impis in Intombe and take the city

finally a knight crushes that Ottoman pike

move units into position to take the last two Zulu cities next turn

IBT : lose two knights on Zulu swords

5) 270BC : 1st takes Mpondo killing two impis

lose two knights, but take Hlobane

leader fishing on scattered Zulu units in the open

IBT : nothing

6) 250BC : just kill a remaining Zulu archer

start positioning forces for Russia

IBT : nothing

7) 230BC : just moving troops

IBT : gift a tundra city to Cathy

Babs land a sword and spear atr CC

8) 210Bc : almost all units are into position for the Russia war

uh, almost forgot about the Babylonian units at CC

IBT : the sword suicides on a knight the spear moves inland

9) 190BC : kill the remaining Babylonian spear at CC

I hand it over now as the next player will have full view on the situation for the upcoming war with Cathy. IMO this is better than just playing to 150BC.

 

[Yilar]

Roster
Più Freddo
ControlFreak
Andronicus
Paul#42
Markh - just played
Denyd - Up
Yilar - On deck

 

[Yilar]

Few notes looking at the save. We don't need 50 knights to invade russia

I would send the knights we have near the west coast onto the boats, sign a RoP with celts and then land them instead, wether we take Yaroslavl this turn or in 2 turns makes little difference. I would also send some knights east to board the boats near France. We really need to start moving onto these islands. The continental cities are far the easiest and fastest cities to take.

Sell Chiv to Greece for 27gpt and 60g, and Germany for 244g, heck sell chiv to everybody. If the AI wants to build 70s units for us to kill instead of cheap pikes, we should let them

Why are we researching?

 

[markh]

The more knights the sooner we run over Catherine.

Forget about France until we have our island secured. France has no iron.

I upped research as there were no units to upgrade.

 

[Andronicus]

The more knights the sooner we run over Catherine.

Forget about France until we have our island secured. France has no iron.

I upped research as there were no units to upgrade.

I agree with Yilar, lets get started on the islands, the longer the delay the more units are built up

No research - if we have no horses to upgrade we can spend gold either shortrushing knights, rushing galleys or rushing settlers. This is a race to domination - if we identified we required cavalry to win fastest, then we should have gone the libary route as klarius has. We didnt, and I have yet to see evidence that our tactics our wrong. I think we as a team have committed to knight domination and we should stick to it.

To win this game as quickly as possible we need to transport adequate numbers of knights to each island. Later we can look to increasing territory with settler spamming and culture where appropriate (islands with lots of coastal tiles not able to be covered by settlers)

 

[Andronicus]

Sell Chiv to Greece for 27gpt and 60g, and Germany for 244g, heck sell chiv to everybody. If the AI wants to build 70s units for us to kill instead of cheap pikes, we should let them

I had considered we would prefer to avoid knights, but you are right - 1 knight goes down more easily than 2 and a bit pikes. The extra cash we gaoin is extra attackers for us.

 

[denyd]

Looks like I get to attack the beautiful Catherine *cough**cough* and get us going on the off island conquering. I'll take a look at it tonight and post a plan.

 

[Yilar]

Our GA will run out in 3 turns according to CA2. We will be needing all the money we can get our hands on, so we can rush a swarm of temples/settlers towards the end.

 

[denyd]

Plans for turn set number 2

Sign peace with Zulu getting Literature & Monarchy
Move 20 knights & Knight Army to Russian border
Fill all available transports with Knights (about 20) and move to French border
Sign ROP with Russia & France
Unload Knights in France and position next to French cities (there are 4)
Move Knights next to Russian cities
Gift Uskador to France (after rushing settler)
Sign ROP with Inca, Iroquois, Mongols, Germany, America & Celts (and Greece if enough cash)
Declare War on France and capture all cities except Uskador
Declare War on Russia and capture all cities except Guarda
When available sign peace with Russia getting Invention
Use new settler to found new city SE of Guarda
Gift new city to Babylon while signing peace
Declare on Babylon and take their 2 original cities
Load up troops that captured Russia and take to America
Take America via ROP rape and repeat on Celts
Load up troops from France and land in Inca nation
Position next to Incan cities, gift them a city and take their nation
Repeat for Iroquois, Mongols, Germans & Greeks

I probably won't get much beyond our local island and France but I'll see what happens

Planning on playing tomorrow afternoon and look forward to any suggestions / comments before then

 

[markh]

Ok, point taken on research. I started research 3 turns ago, so there shouldn't be much harm done. Sorry.

 

[ControlFreak]

Is it just a coincidence, or has our 2/4 Knight been sitting in Shaka's prison the whole turnset?

While we can't see the entire map, it's seeming a good likely hood that EVERY civ besides the ones on our island own their own continent. If we don't want to have tons of fleets of galleys we want to target centrally located continents, and shuttle our units from that central continent to all the adjacent ones. I'm also thinking that slogging way through the channels (all coastal tiles) is a waste of galley movement. We want to follow attack paths that are mostly ocean, so the centrally located continent should be surrounded by ocean so the galleys can circumnavigate it easily. Theres a lot of different options and I'm trying to read the map to figure out the optimal route.

I turned the diplomacy mapping on in CAII and was surprized to see how many red (we're already at war with) tiles are nearby. If we attack france next, it will leave us near the Inca who are currently enemies. Finishing Babylon will leave us near Korean and India, both enemies. Also Japan and Rome are enemies. I'm not really afraid of them, I just want to put us in the most secure position so we can quickly move on to the next target. I also think it's easier to target "next civs" that we're already at war with. With that thought process, maybe France then Inca is not a bad move. However, Inca is not centrally located and is not a good jumping point to many other civs. Neither if France because it has a lot of surrounding coastal tiles.

On the other hand, India, is a good candiate: central to Korea, China, Maya and Germany, and we're already at war with them.

Other well positioned contients are Maya and Sumeria.
Perhaps our strategy should involve going towards India first. From there jump to Maya and Sumeria with the lead fleet. Second and third and fourth waves would follow to reinforce the first attack stream, providing more troop flow along the Indian Mayan Sumeria backbone, and eventually supporting

1. Attacks from Sumerian continent
2. Attacks from Mayan Continent
3. Transport from India Continent to Mayan Continent
4. Transport from Mainland to Indian Continent.

We can leave the Celts/Americans and France/Inca as cleanup later.

Korea's mainland would make a nice prison for muliple civs because the choke points can separate them from killing each other. Keeping our ROP rep intact is important if we want to maintain peace keeping troops in foreign territory.

 

[denyd]

I was hoping for a little more input before I play so I'll delay for a couple of hours

 

[Andronicus]

I am currently trying to sort out what is happening in diplomacy
I know we are getting WH from India, Korea and Hittites, but am still trying to find why we are at war with Aztecs (I think this was our original declaration so no WH), Rome (last I could tell we had a PT tied to MA v Aztecs about to expire - did we cancel the PT thus declaring war? - I thought the idea was either to renew the MA-PT hoping Aztecs broke it, or go to make war with Rome making peace with Aztecs tying this to MA v Rome - if this was done and Aztecs already broke we have another WH, but no mention in handoff) and Inca (I think Paul dowed and tied Iroq to PT which still has 6 turns to run, so no WH there). From what I can read we should make peace with Aztecs tying it to MA v Rome. Japan broke PT during my turns so they also provide WH.

In summary
civs we are at war with
1) providing WH
Japan, India, Korea, Hittites
2) No WH
Inca (still MA with Iroquois), Aztecs (can get peace and tie to MA v Rome - or ? Japan - I havnt checked F4 : edit just checked, they dont know Japan)
3) On our starting continent
Babs (now down to 2 towns - we need to save them soon)
Zulu (should we pillage the roads around Shakas retreat before peace?)
Otto - should we get peace now?

 

[Andronicus]

There are quite a number of MM issues - many of these will be complicated by the ending of our GA shortly

I will post my comments shortly

 

[Andronicus]

RL had prevented me looking at the save till today (our family had Xmas early - yesterday)

Some comments:
We are paying upkeep on a number of buildings we are not getting benefit from
- rax in Medina and Zimbabwe
- market in Zimbabwe (I realise Zimbabwe was only recently captured, but it doesnt need all those happy faces )

Corrupt areas (only making 1spt) should be maximising food
eg Badejoz can go from 3fpt to 5fpt (although I suggest giving fp to CB to grow it - more later). These towns should make settlers or workers if they have the food, or galleys if coastal. This appears to be happening (exc Hlobane where I guess the default build has not been changed after capture, -> build worker), but I wonder why Najran is building settler when it is only 41% corrupt and wont grow to size 3 for another 8 turns - it could build a rax and units. Damascus needs a worker added to allow it to build its settler without wasting lots of shields. CB is 61% corrupt and once GA ends probably wont have the shields to justify a rax - I suggest it takes the fp from Badajoz and build settler.


Optimal shield usage
We want our productive towns building horses or knights.
For horses 5, 6, 10, 15, 30spt are optimal numbers
For knights 7, 10 (although horses gets pref), 14, 18 and 24spt work well
As Yilar pointed out 20spt can be shortrushed to settler after 1 turn for 3 turn knight.
Currently I see HH doing 23spt and starving when it could easily take another 1spt and 2 fpt tile in place of coast. GG is donig an awkward 29spt when it should be doing 30spt (switch m plain to hill about to have mine completed - this could have been prioritised earlier if the 29spt situation was identified) - of course this changes in 3 turns when GA ends when the best combination will have to be re-sorted.
ZZ can be 2spt during GA if works the mined tile instead of taxman - extra 1spt and only loses 1gpt. Taxman may work out better after GA

CC - I think the decision was to switch to units after GA - is it worth building market first, or is it too late for this to pay off (probably gets us around 25gpt once market built and grown to size 12, so ? takes 12 turns to pay for the lost 100 shields - 100 shields cost 300g if used for upgrading)?

Worker tasks
I know there are different views on optimising worker tasks, but using slaves to road unimproved tiles does allow workers to then improve them (either singly or in stacks) without losing movement point.
We need irrigating in ex-Arabia
Clearing the swamp E,SE of Isandlwanda will allow a town to be settled which adds a few more domination tiles. Normally I wouldnt worry about adding extra towns till much later,but this tile takes a little preparing.

All these little things make little difference by themselves, but added up we could get more units to our enemies sooner getting domination sooner.

edit
Added a dot map of suggested sites for AI reservations

 

[denyd]

After looking at this a bit more, I'm starting to wonder if I should even bother with the ROP for Russia. I can begin the attack right away and save the ROP for France, Inca et al.

I agree with the MMing to specific levels, but you're right that after turn 3 it'll need to be re-evaluated again as the Ga will have ended.

Comments?

I'm leaving in about 30 minutes for a quick trip to Disneyland with relatives and plan to play turns 1-3 tonight about 10pm.

 

[Andronicus]

After looking at this a bit more, I'm starting to wonder if I should even bother with the ROP for Russia. I can begin the attack right away and save the ROP for France, Inca et al.

Agree, their units should be south - anyway they are weak

 

[denyd]

OUr houseguests came home with us (instead of staying for the fireworks) so I won't get to play until tomorrow night.

 

[Paul#42]

OUr houseguests came home with us (instead of staying for the fireworks) so I won't get to play until tomorrow night.

Don't worry, that gets me the chance to have a look and place some smart comments here...

Be a good host and welcome your guests

 

[ControlFreak]

I am currently trying to sort out what is happening in diplomacy
I know we are getting WH from India, Korea and Hittites, but am still trying to find why we are at war with Aztecs (I think this was our original declaration so no WH), Rome (last I could tell we had a PT tied to MA v Aztecs about to expire - did we cancel the PT thus declaring war? - I thought the idea was either to renew the MA-PT hoping Aztecs broke it, or go to make war with Rome making peace with Aztecs tying this to MA v Rome - if this was done and Aztecs already broke we have another WH, but no mention in handoff) and Inca (I think Paul dowed and tied Iroq to PT which still has 6 turns to run, so no WH there). From what I can read we should make peace with Aztecs tying it to MA v Rome. Japan broke PT during my turns so they also provide WH.

As best as I can tell, we declared on the Aztecs and Rome's peace treaty has been tied to an alliance up to markh's first turn. We told him to "cancel" that deal, and I think he cancelled the whole thing, peace and all. That put us at war with Rome at our declaration. So no war happiness from either side. We can get peace with Aztecs if that's the case. We also don't need to be at war with Rome if we can get out of it for some gain. Or stay at war and have them be the target of the Russian forces.

Don't have much time to study the game, so not much more advice for Denyd other than making sure the galleys are doing productive things, shutting off research, and pausing at end of GA to reassess the MM.